the new york police department has launched a possible investigation after a professor’s office at Columbia University was vandalised with spray-painted swastikas and a derogatory word aimed at Jewish people.

The department started investigating into the possible hate crime as professor Elizabeth Midlarsky is jewish and was responsible for publishing articles relating to the Holocaust.

” I opened the outer door and almost passed out”

“I was so shaky, I wasn’t sure I was going to make it,” as soon as she noticed the two swastikas spray-painted in red.

She immediately reported the incident to the security, many teachers and staff have supported her. Thomas Bailey, the president of Columbia’s Teachers College said in a statement Wednesday, “We unequivocally condemn any expression of hatred, which has no place in our society. We are outraged and horrified by this act of aggression and use of this vile anti-Semitic symbol against a valued member of our community.” Bailey added that they are working with police to find the perpetrator.

It isn’t the first time she had seen a Swastika sprayed on to a surface, in 2007 who had a Swastika spray-painted on her office door

At the time, then Teachers College President Susan Fuhrman joined Midlarsky at a student-organized protest, saying, “We stand with our students, who have said ‘enough’ to hate crimes, and in this particular case, to a vicious swastika.”

Midlarsky, who is 77 and in declining health, says she is baffled by the most recent vandalism.

“I haven’t done anything, said anything,” she said adding that she sees this incident as “connected to a trend and upsurge in anti-Semitism that we’ve seen in recent years.”

Midlarsky referenced her 13-year-old grandson’s Bar Mitzvah, held on the same day as the shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue that killed 11 people.